The Energon Pub

According to this article, maybe: http://tformers.com/article.php?sid=13760

Hasbro In Early Talks of Leveraged Buyout

By bwbm on Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Hasbro, Inc. is in early talks with private-equity firm Providence Equity Partners on the possibility of a leveraged buyout and taking the company public, reports The Wall Street Journal.

According to people familiar with the matter, it is still in the early stages and the deal is not definite yet.

Hasbro declined to comment and Providence Equity did not respond to requests for comment. A

pricetag was not disclosed. Hasbro has a market cap of approximately $6 billion, significantly above the typical buyouts between $1 to $4 billion this year.

A leveraged buyout is when a third party purchases a controlling stake in a company, paid mainly through borrowed money.

Stay tuned to Tformers.com for more details as they are made available. Your best resource for all the Transformers news and community every day.

So...what does all of this mean?

Most likely, nothing that will be noticeable at the retail level.

If from what I have checked is true, this is what I believe is the current situation.

Hasbro is a privately held corporation, and has asked PEP to buy up a large percentage of the privately held shares from either the company or their private stockholders in a bid that would eventually see those shares entered into a public offering.

The plus side would be the influx of capital Hasbro would receive, the negative is that whenever public shares are circulated, and depending on the amount of the total shares made public, that the company may then find it's self in a position where rather than just acting at a board level, it may, at times, have decisions requiring a vote or views of it's shareholders to be considered.

However it is doubtful Hasbro would commit a majority of it's shares to such an offering so it will likely continue to be business as usual.